Technical Field
The present disclosure generally relates to various geometries for gate-all-around transistor devices built on a silicon substrate and, in particular, to transistors that are suitable for low-power applications.
Description of the Related Art
Conventional integrated circuits incorporate planar field effect transistors (FETs) in which current flows through a semiconducting channel between a source and a drain, in response to a voltage applied to a control gate. The semiconductor industry strives to obey Moore's law, which holds that each successive generation of integrated circuit devices shrinks to half its size and operates twice as fast. As device dimensions have shrunk below 100 nm, however, conventional silicon device geometries and materials have experienced difficulty maintaining switching speeds without incurring failures such as, for example, leaking current from the device into the semiconductor substrate. Several new technologies have emerged that allowed chip designers to continue shrinking gate lengths to 45 nm, 22 nm, and then as low as 14 nm. One particularly radical technology change entailed re-designing the structure of the FET from a planar device to a three-dimensional device in which the semiconducting channel was replaced by a fin that extends out from the plane of the substrate. In such a device, commonly referred to as a FinFET, the control gate wraps around three sides of the fin so as to influence current flow from three surfaces instead of one. The improved control achieved with a 3-D design results in faster switching performance and reduced current leakage. Building taller devices has also permitted increasing the device density within the same footprint that had previously been occupied by a planar FET. Examples of FinFET devices are described in further detail in U.S. Pat. No. 8,759,874 and U.S. Patent Application Publication US2014/0175554, assigned to the same assignee as the present patent application.
The FinFET concept was further extended by developing a gate-all-around FET, or GAA FET, in which the gate fully wraps around the channel for maximum control of the current flow therein. In the GAA FET, the channel can take the form of a cylindrical nanowire that is isolated from the substrate, in contrast to the peninsular fin. In the GAA FET the cylindrical nanowire is surrounded by the gate oxide, and then by the gate. Existing GAA FETs are oriented horizontally, such that the nanowire extends in a direction that is substantially parallel to the surface of the semiconductor substrate. GAA FETs are described in, for example, U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2013/0341596 to Chang et al., of IBM, and in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/312,418, assigned to the same assignee as the present patent application.
As integrated circuits shrink with each technology generation, more power is needed to drive a larger number of transistors housed in a smaller volume. To prevent chips from overheating, and to conserve battery power, each generation of transistors is designed to operate at a lower voltage and to dissipate less power. In a conventional complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) field effect transistor, the source and drain are doped to have a same polarity, e.g., both positive, in a P-FET, or both negative, in an N-FET. When the gate voltage applied to the transistor, VG, exceeds a threshold voltage, VT, the device turns on and current flows through the channel. When the gate voltage applied to the transistor is below the threshold voltage, the drain current, ID, ideally is zero and the device is off. However, in reality, in the sub-threshold regime, there exists a small leakage current that is highly sensitive to the applied voltage. Over time, the leakage current drains charge from the power supply, e.g., a mobile phone battery or a computer battery, thus necessitating more frequent recharging. A change in gate voltage that is needed to reduce the sub-threshold leakage current by a factor of 10 is called the sub-threshold swing. It is desirable for the sub-threshold swing to be as small as possible. It is understood by those skilled in the art that MOSFETs have reached their lower limit of sub-threshold swing at 60 mV/decade. Thus, a different type of device is needed to further decrease the sub-threshold swing.
Tunneling field effect transistors (TFETs) are considered promising alternatives to conventional CMOS devices for use in future integrated circuits having low-voltage, low-power applications. Unlike a MOSFET, the source and drain of a TFET are doped to have opposite polarity. During operation of the TFET, charge carriers tunnel through a potential barrier rather than being energized to surmount the potential barrier, as occurs in a MOSFET. Because switching via tunneling requires less energy, TFETs are particularly useful in low-power applications such as mobile devices, for which battery lifetime is of utmost importance. Another reason TFETs provide enhanced switching performance for low-voltage operation is that TFETs have substantially smaller values of sub-threshold swing than MOSFETs.